[1] At the PKR national congress this week, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim did what any politician facing a restive party base would do: he promised action. Those responsible for the mismanagement at Tabung Haji, he said, would be investigated, and Felda would be next. No Malaysian, whatever their politics, will object to that. The Tabung Haji scandal — a hole in the pilgrim fund’s accounts running into the billions — and Felda’s long-running troubles have cost taxpayers dearly. If there is genuine appetite to go after those responsible, good.

[2] But scepticism is warranted, for a simple reason: none of this is new. The rot at Tabung Haji did not appear last month. It has been documented, debated and investigated in fits and starts for years — years in which Anwar was already in power. If the political will to prosecute existed, it had three years to show itself. Instead we get yet another promise about cases he has had ample opportunity to close out. The uncomfortable truth is that in three years in power, his administration cannot point to a single major corruption conviction it can call its own. That is not the record of a government serious about ending impunity.

[3] Timing matters here. There is a real chance the next government wears a different colour. If that happens, and these cases are still sitting in a file at the Attorney-General’s Chambers or winding their way through the courts, the smart money says they quietly disappear — as so many cases before them have. Anwar had, arguably, his best chance yet to draw a line: pursue every outstanding case, secure real convictions, and send an unambiguous signal that the old rules no longer apply. That moment is passing, if it has not passed already.

[4] Nor should anyone look to UMNO to do the job instead. The party’s response to the Tabung Haji revelations has followed a familiar script with UMNO figures pushing back on the idea that the party itself bears responsibility for what happened on its watch, even as critics within its own orbit — Khairy Jamaluddin among them — have warned UMNO risks squandering its credibility if it does not own up to the governance failures. That it hasn’t done. And neither has it sanctioned those involved.

[5] DAP does not get to sit above this either, whatever its brand as the coalition’s conscience. Where was that conscience when Ahmad Zahid Hamidi walked away from 47 corruption charges in 2023 via a discharge not amounting to acquittal? DAP leaders asked pointed questions of the Attorney-General’s Chambers at the time, then carried on serving in cabinet alongside the man they had questioned. The pattern repeated with the Tabung Haji RCI report itself, which sat unreleased for 43 months. Asking questions from within government while doing nothing to force consequences is not the moral high ground; it is a seat at the table, kept warm.

[6] Hamzah Zainuddin, the opposition leader, for his part, has said the right thing in principle: good governance, he argues, must underpin every government. Fair enough. But that principle is empty if it is not paired with a demand that those responsible for the Tabung Haji losses actually face charges. Where is that demand? Opposition and government alike seem more comfortable arguing over who gets to hold the moral high ground than insisting the people responsible for a multi-billion-ringgit hole in a pilgrim fund must be sanctioned or charged in court.

[7] Now Anwar, faced with the unravelling of his unity government, is intimating that PKR is open to working with any party, that all options are on the table. From past experience, we know that such alignments invariably mean more DNAAs, cover-ups and excuses for inaction, all in the name of stability or unity, of course.

[8] Which is really the point. Every side in Malaysian politics has learned to speak fluently in the language of good governance, transparency and zero tolerance for corruption. It costs nothing to say, and it plays well at a party congress or a press conference. But talk is not accountability, and slogans are not convictions. Most of what passes for a governance agenda in Malaysia today is a product of the very political system it claims to reform — a system in which corruption is not an aberration to be punished but simply how power is exercised, protected and, eventually, forgiven. I’ll believe in the promise of good governance when I see those senior politicians involved in corruption in jail, finally.

Dennis Ignatius | Kuala Lumpur | Monday 17 August 2026